One of the primary objectives of physical geography is to determine how natural phenomena produce specific territorial patterns. Therefore, physical geography offers substantial scientific input into territorial planning for sustainability. A key area where physical geography can contribute to land management is in the delimitation of landscape units. Such units are fundamental to formal socio-economic zoning and management in territorial planning. However, numerous methodologies—based on widely varying criteria—exist to delineate and map landscapes. We have selected five consolidated methodologies with current applications for mapping the landscape to analyse the different role of physical geography in each: (1) geomorphological landscape maps based on landforms; (2) geosystemic landscape maps; (3) Landscape Character Assessment; (4) landscape studies based on visual landscape units; (5) landscape image-pair test. We maintain that none of these methodologies are universally applicable, but that each contributes important insights into landscape analysis for land management within particular biogeophysical and social contexts. This work is intended to demonstrate that physical geography is ubiquitous in contemporary landscape studies intended to facilitate sustainable territorial planning, but that the role it plays varies substantially with the criteria prioritized.

The European Landscape Convention (ELC) has encouraged affiliated countries to develop several assessment methodologies to facilitate land management in an effort to develop compatible, integrative assessment techniques that can be applied in diverse geographic settings. Here we begin to address the question of how to develop comprehensive landscape assessments based on the criteria of the ELC by integrating landscape studies using biophysical and visual characteristics. We assessed visibility, quality, and fragility to determine aptitude for protection based on both biophysical and visual landscape units. We selected the Martin River Cultural Park (Aragon, Spain) as a study area because it is recognized as a site of cultural and geomorphological importance, it is situated in a signatory country to the ELC, but has not been subject to any landscape assessment. The resulting maps of aptitude for protection can be used to prioritize landscapes for protection based on their levels of quality and fragility.

The Infierno Glacier is located in Aragon (Spain), Pyrenees Mountain range, the only one in this country that still preserves white glaciers. These are the southernmost glaciers in Europe and are currently in rapid decline. The work analyzes the evolution of the glacier between 2016 and 2022 and provides data, for this period, which lacked this information, in an area bordering the glacial ice survival. In addition to the observations on the glacier itself, the variables (precipitation, temperature, snow volume and thickness) that allow an understanding of this evolution are studied. The results show a setback of the glacier (thickness losses: 4.6 m; front retreat; 14.9 m). The evolution has frequent trend changes, linked to the interannual climatic irregularity characteristic of the Pyrenees. The main explanatory factor is the thermal increase. The thermal anomalies with respect to the average reference values have increased, in this period, by +0.55 °C. The year 2022 has been particularly warm and has recorded the greatest losses for this glacier. With respect to precipitation, it has an irregular behavior and shows a tendency to decrease (−9% in the same period). This work has the additional interest of analyzing a glacier in the terminal phase, which if current trends continue, evolves into dead ice.

We analyze the changes in the landscape of the río Grande (Grande River, Michoacán, Mexico), from its contextualization in the Anthropocene. We focus on the environmental transformations of the last hundred years, recognizing three temporalities based on inflection points. First, the national water control policies of the period 1930- 1970, which involved the construction of reservoirs for the benefit of irrigation districts and power generation. Second, 1970-1990, planning and management subordinated to urban expansion. Third, 1990-2023, framed by the political discourse around sustainable development, but in which conflicts over water management increase. We resorted to a geographic approach to the landscape, emphasizing the changes derived from the alteration of land use and vegetation cover. We conducted archival work, statistical analysis, and field surveys. We concluded that, although the landscapes of the river have been transformed for centuries, it is in the last hundred years where the alterations have been radically.../...

El trabajo aborda una propuesta para la correcta gestión del paisaje en el municipio de Morelia. Se alude a diferentes metodologías de estudios de paisaje utilizadas tradicionalmente en México y se concluye con la necesidad de abordar métodos que integren los aspectos físicos y humanos del territorio, así como que den respuesta a los conceptos sobre paisaje plasmados en la legislación mexicana. Se parte de la delimitación de unidades territoriales de trabajo definidas por criterios geomorfológicos (denominadas por el PMGROT como Unidades Territoriales Estratégicas -UTE-), a partir de un enfoque metodológico de gran prestigio internacional, como es el Levantamiento Geomorfológico de la Escuela Holandesa. Posteriormente, y partiendo de esta base de delimitación netamente física, se desarrollan para estas UTE varios análisis paisajísticos acordes a los postulados del Convenio europeo del paisaje, recogidos a su vez por la Iniciativa Latinoamericana del Paisaje. Se trata de los estudios de visibilidad (estructurados en tres ámbitos: visibilidad intrínseca, accesibilidad visual y visibilidad de impactos negativos). Finalmente, se evalúan cualidades clave para la gestión del paisaje, como son la calidad, la fragilidad y la aptitud paisajísticas. Todo ello permite realizar propuestas argumentadas para la gestión y protección –desde una perspectiva paisajística- de las UTE del municipio de Morelia.

The purpose of this research is to show and analyze the evolution data of the little glacier of the Infierno, which lies in the Aragonese Pyrenees. This is the only Spanish mountain range which still maintains white glaciers (160 ha in 2012) in its western extreme. The Infierno glacier, which is located at an altitude between 2700 and 2950 meters and is in a fast-regressing geographic context, covers 7.6 ha. The data from 1998 to 2015 of the evolution of the glacier are presented, associated to crucial meteorological factors such as temperature, rainfall and rhythm of temporal snowbed accumulation. A clear correlation between the annual weather conditions and the behavior of the glacier has been determined. At present, it can be stated that the glacier shows a variable behavior with a very low inertia. In fact, the years with the highest glacier loss rates were 2006, 2012 and 2015, whereas 2013 and 2014 were the most positive ones when the snow coverage exceeded the glacier basin itself and no ice could be seen on the surface. The evolution from 2012 until 2015 shows a significant evidence of the feeble inertia of the glacier as two good years, 2013 and 2014, were followed by an appalling 2014, to finish up with another horrible 2015. Regarding the rhythms of snow accumulated during the analyzed period of time, it has been proven that winters with a high rate of snow production are very positive for the glacier balance. However, these winters may be counteracted too by hot springs and summers which may have caused the total or almost total disappearance of the snowbed piled up throughout the winter. Late-spring snowfalls may enhance the balance, and could be even more important than the winter ones, as they can be very helpful to protect totally or partially the mass of ice during periods of high temperatures. Glaciers are sensitive to global warming but, in the higher basin of the Gallego River, a slight increase of snowbed in the start of the 21st century can be observed, which seems logical in terms of annual variability.